Tuesday, May 30, 2006

I haven't had much stitching accomplished in the past few days so I thought I would post a couple of older finishes.

This is my TW Round Robin that my TW stitching pals worked on for me. The top section is what I stitched, which is the top arch from TW's Birth Sampler. The 7 bands below are from different TW borders, each one just as stunning as the other. I received it finished last fall and I have yet to get back to it to finish the sides bars and the small bottom section, which will be the bottom arch from Birth Sampler.

This one is Egyptian Sampler which I think I finished 3 year ago and has been sitting languishing in my stitching bag ever since. It was a fun one to work on with all the different motifs.

And this is my latest TW finish - Woodland Faerie. I spent a good part of last year working on her and finished in September. I decided against the outermost border, I preferred leaving her with the leafy border instead as I thought the final border would look too heavy, especially since most of the design is solid stitching.

I have several more TW's in my stash, luckily for me she has stopped designing for a while, as there is no way I could keep up with her gorgeous designs. And this is the first time in a long while I haven't had a TW on the go.

I can't believe how hot it is already this morning - the temp in the house was 27 C at 7:30 am, so I had to break down and turn on the a/c. The forecast for today is for 35 C, with a humidex of 42 C. And its only May still!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

My package arrived from Needlecraft Corner yesterday! This was my present from hubby for no stash buying for the month of April.

I had already bought the Designing Ladies Finishing Book, and silly me I really assumed there would be one of the patterns in the book for these wonderful needlebooks. So I was about to order the Attic Collection by Judy O'Dell, when I found the kit packaged together by Drema. It comes with the most gorgeous piece of hand-dyed 32 ct linen, called Vintage Autumn Fields, 7 skeins of Needle Necessities and a pack of copper coloured beads.

I' ve had a look through the charts and it looks pretty well laid out, showing exactly where to stitch each of the patterns on the fabric, so that you have enough left over for the finishing.

This is really not the best scan, this fabric is really to die for!

I can't believe this is Thursday already, its 4 Saisons stitching night, and I don't think I've touched it this month at all! I hope to get some decent stitching done and I'll scan it tomorrow morning. I'm into Winter just as our weather here is finally warming up!

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Yes, its an ark, although it is hard to tell...I got tired of endless brown stitching and I was eager to get more of the ark shape done, so I jumped ahead and started in on the body. This part is getting to be rather tedious stitching, I never have been a fan of stitching with the same colour in a long continuous line. I'm anxious to start in on the animals as they are so cute.

So much for a holiday weekend - we had the coldest, rainiest, dullest Victoria Day Weekend that I can remember. It was fine at the cottage inside as my hubby had roaring fires going which were really too hot, we could have cooked off them. Losing power for several hours Sunday afternoon made for a very interesting dinner! Luckily to counter all the miserable weather, Carrie, JF and I had a great time at Saturday's auction. No purchases for me, although I am really frustrated that I didn't bid on several numbered reprints from the Group of Seven. There were several that would have looked wonderful in my living room, and they each sold for $100-130 - amazing! Sunday, we visited a couple of small towns not too far a drive away and had a fun time shopping, and even found 3 scrapbook stores!

And of course that also left lots of time for stitching! And at least its a short work week too!!

And very sad news from Kelly ~ she and Chris were off for a holiday weekend in Georgia. They had just dropped off puppy Molly at a friend's and 2 hours later had a phone call that Molly had escaped from their fenced back yard and was hit by a car and killed. Poor little thing! Kelly is naturally very upset. It was especially hard when they got back home and saw her bed and all her toys lying about. Hard to know why these things happen...

Friday, May 19, 2006

I'm finished...I'm finished!!! Attitudes by Stoney Creek that I have stitched for my daughter Carrie is now officially finished. It looks lovely, if I do say so myself, and I'm very pleased to have done this in record speed for me ~ I started it on February 26th and finished on May 17th. But I also really worked on very little else meanwhile.

This is Carrie's graduation present after 5 very long years at university. She is graduating in radiation therapy this fall. And when I showed her the finished 'Attitudes', she told us she is now considering another 2 years to complete her master's degree. Now I'm wondering what on earth could I possibly stitch her for that?

Last night I put some stitches in my Bent Creek Snappers series - I had sadly fallen behind in that and I'm finally catching up with the May square. But I forgot about my 4 Saisons Thursday night! I owe 3 Thurdays now to this one.

Its a holiday weekend with Victoria Day on Monday - that means cottage time - and we're cottage-bound on Saturday to Monday. Its been unseasonably cool the past few days so I'm really hoping at least the sun stays out and lets us enjoy being outside by the water.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Nothing is more thrilling than starting a new project. Well, except may be finishing one! My niece is about 3 weeks away from having a new baby so its not like I didn't have any warning to get something stitched, but other things kept getting in the way. And possibilities for birth samplers are endless these days, the more I searched on-line, the more things I found that I liked. What finally narrowed down my search was my love of anything-Prairie Schooler, and knowing that my niece likes Noah's Ark pieces.

On my last visit to Knowledge & Needles, I found 2 PS charts called Two by Two and Two by Two II and while not looking like a birth sampler, I absolutely loved the ark and all the charted animals. Ann suggested a band sampler style for a birth sampler and I was sold! Then it was a matter of how on earth do I chart out such a thing.

I found an on line source for graph paper and scanned all the charts of the ark and animals. I cut them out and started placing them in different positions on my graph paper. The charts are all slightly different sizes, so it really was a matter of trying to figure out which ones worked together best and flowed fairly smoothly. Carrie helped out using Excel to chart out the blocks, so I could make sure that I have a general idea of where each animal will be stitched in relation to the others. And with hubby making a final copy of all my various bits and pieces, finally I have my PS Noah's Ark Birth Sampler ready to go.

And amazingly enough, I found a piece of 28 count cream quaker cloth in my stash - perfect size - 14" x 55". I think this was an odds & ends piece from Silkweaver that I bought ages ago.

Now .... to just make my first few stitches! Hmmm, don't think this will be ready in time for the baby though!

Monday, May 15, 2006

I was very spoiled on Mother's Day. I got a Rachael Ray cookbook from Carrie and JF and then she had me pick out a recipe which she then made for my dinner Saturday night - it was delicious!From Nick I got earrings - gold and silver intertwined. And from Kelly, a really pretty case for my IPOD and cool looking post-it notes (she knows I am fascinated by post-its).

After a Chinese food dinner Sunday night, hubby and I headed to the Air Canada Centre in downtown TO to see INXS! Stabilo opened for them, which I was happy about as I like their music also. But once INXS came out, they were incredible. JD is such a showman, he never stops on stage, just constantly in motion. They played a lot of older INXS music plus several new ones from their latest CD. 2 solid hours of music - it was amazing.

What a great way to top off Mother's Day! Now back to the real world and back to work for me after a week off the past week.

Friday, May 12, 2006

From the Stitching SBQ:When you stitch from a kit and use the supplied floss do you have leftovers? If so, how much and what do you do with them? If not, do you usually have just enough or do you have to dig into your stash to finish?

I usually do have leftover floss because I'm pretty careful when using it. I only toss away leftover pieces shorter than my finger.

I never know what to do with leftovers, especially if from one of the kits, where the floss isn't DMC-numbered. So the leftovers usually just sit in a very pretty lump and get pushed in with the kit leftovers - pattern and picture - in case, just one day, somebody else might want to do this pattern.

So yes, somewhere in a box, packed neatly away, are all my 'left-overs' waiting for their chance to come out and be played with again. I know there's an island for misfit toys - may be there is an island for leftover kits too?

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Its been a while since I've put anything on this blog - I spent several days in the hospital and my first few days back home were not so good either. Yesterday I started to feel more like myself again...finally! I even picked up my stitching for the first time with any enthusiasm, although first off I had to frog what I had tried to do the day before and failed at miserably.

On the plus side, my sisters have been by to visit which is always nice. And hubby has been working hard and coming home to prepare dinner and tidy the house. I still have a couple more days to enjoy being a couch potato before back to work on Monday. I think I actually may enjoy the next couple of days of being pampered and waited on!

Monday, May 01, 2006

Spring is finally here, and to stay! What great weather we had all weekend long, and not a rain drop in sight.

The Creative Needlework festival was wonderful - and far too easy to spend all my money. It wasn't overly crowded which made visiting all the booths much much easier. Although there wasn't too much to be seen, stitching-wise, the quilting and scrapbooking areas far made up for it.

Here is a pic of the newest must-have series that I spotted. Its called Coffee Classic Inspirations, by McKenna Ryan. I have done a couple of her patterns and they are a lot of fun, lots of tracing of little tiny pieces and cutting out, but so easy to put together with heat-n-bond. Then its just top stitching ! The store that had these patterns kitted up, unfortunately was out of them, so I'll just have to make a point of getting into their shop next month. This will look great on my newly painted kitchen wall.

I did hit Len's Mill and found a really cute house panel and a couple of fabrics that will coordinate to make a table runner. I also picked up a bag pattern and then found some ultra-suede to make it and a very pretty batik to use as lining.

And the knitting bug has truly gotten me, for some crazy reason, could be all the knitting I've been reading about on other blogs, and seeing Nancy's gorgeous knitted afghan at our last get-together. I found a lovely sweater pattern kit at Mary Maxim's and that ended up in my bag to take home also. And I even managed to get it started last night, even after the kids had dragged me down to the lake for a 5 km bike ride. They were rollerblading, far more difficult than what I was doing, but hey, they're a lot younger than me!